Log # 254
What is life but a list full of errands and tasks one after another? Adulthood is full of tasks anyway. However for someone who lives in Pakistan and someone who lives abroad it is very different. Pakistan is a poor country, and it is easy to manipulate labour there for low price. You name it, you can have it. From every day house help, a gardener, another house help for laundry, sometimes a guard. There will be a cook in some households and some will have a mother, a wife, or a sister to cook for you so basically you are all sorted. This bubble of comfort and availability of someone to always be there supporting you in your daily life bursts quickly once you decide to pack your life in 2 23kg bags and take the plane out.
From the moment you wake up in the morning to the time you go to bed, a never ending list of tasks follow you. Make your breakfast, pack your lunch, cook dinner, clean the dishes, clean the house, take the trash out, water the plants, don’t forget your laundry. Done with laundry? Fold it and put it back in the closet. Shirts will need ironing. Shape the pants after wash. Fruits are going bad, find time to eat them. Wash the car to remove salt. Tire change is next. While you are at it, windshield will need replacing too. Before you sleep, do this 5 step skin care at least. You maybe aging faster than you thought. Or are you?
In all of the every day mundane tasks, the only thing I keep forgetting (or rightly put keep ignoring) is to book appointment with the doctors that I really need. It is not like you cannot have support here for some of these tasks. You certainly can buy services from various different service providers who will gladly assist you. It’s the fact that not everyone can afford to have these. For a student or a minimum wage worker, getting by month after month is hard enough. Let alone having the luxuries of house help. This is not even about house help. It’s about having nothing but tasks to complete as a grown up. Not that I had a vision of what I will be doing as a grown up, but I just knew I wanted some things from life. At the end of the day now, I am too tired to do anything at all. I could also be just lazy, just a thought!
One thing after another, there are quests to be completed and win rewards. Rewards being the completion of tasks, nothing else. I am not ungrateful, I love my life and would choose to move away from Pakistan in a heartbeat. These tasks that I do now, make my life even more beautiful. Having help here is also wonderful and certainly lowers several of every day burdens. I guess, I am just tired of running a list of things that I must complete in a day. Why can’t some things just be done by someone and me not having to worry about it? That will be great. As an actual reward, most adults take themselves to a vacation once a year. That’s what an (above) average person can afford right now because the average ones are still figuring out their rent and price of groceries. It’s a scam that told us to make money and sort your life out. Making money is pouring into taxes and girl, do we pay a hefty amount of taxes each year or what?
I think what I need is a break where I can do whatever I want without having to worry about anything. No lists, no tasks, no errands. Just me reading, sketching, looking after my plants, spending time with my cat. As a bonus, some chickens in a chicken coop. Or I can also just stop worrying about any and all of the tasks that the world expect me to do. Being a disappointment can be great too since people actually stop expecting from you. That is a win in my opinion.